PTSD
by SeverEstHolmes
Summary: Life for an ex-soldier is demanding - it's messy and confusing - and hiding PTSD from everyone around him, Neville is trapped by two words: I can't. Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.


**A/N: Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.  
Beater 2 - Wimbourne Wasps.  
Prompt: Write about your character/pairing holding something back.** _Pairing I was given = Neville/Luna. (_ I definitely got the captain's hate on this one!)  
**Optional Prompts: 5. (quote) "I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness a million times, but never once into it." - Jonathan Safran Foer; 12. (word) lonely; 13. (restriction) No using the word 'Hogwarts'.  
Also - this was not how I had originally intended this piece to come out, but as I was writing it kind of morphed into this abstract form, and well - it kind of works (I think). However to clarify, those passages in _italics _are thoughts/memories presenting themselves obtrusively into Neville's mind. I understand that it potentially reads as disjointed, but the intention is to put across what living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is really like.**

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"I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness a million times, but never once into it."  
I don't see how I could ever be happy again…

_Every time I close my eyes, I see something different:  
__Clouds of dust, crushing stone, crumbling stone, crumbling to rubble.  
__Constant flashes of light – red, green, blue and white.  
__People dodging, people being hit. Bruises forming, bones breaking; and splatters and pools and dripping blood._

I had never anticipated the end. The end of the fighting, the end of the resistance; the end of the War. There's a line from a song that Gran used to play a lot that goes something like: _'Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it's gone.' _ I don't think I had ever anticipated what it would be like to not be under persecution… I had gotten used to it at school, I had gotten used to being the second rate Potter. While Harry had disappeared off to do whatever it was, I had been left, with Ginny and Luna, that was until Luna had been taken away by the death eaters at the beginning of the Christmas holidays; stuck in a school controlled rigidly by Voldemort's regime and the Carrows' cruelty. But to me, it had not been as oppressing as it was for many of the other students – my pureblood status saved me on one respect; at least it allowed me to return to school, and when there I could begin the resistance from within.

_Every time I am surrounded by silence, I hear them again:  
__A cacophony of voices – curses being hurled in harsh and determined tones; spells cracking as they made their mark or missed and ricocheted off stone or wood or surrounding people; people screaming in pain, or terror, or from grief. Grief always sounded worse.  
__Stone crashing onto stone; the footsteps of the giants; the persistent attempts to weaken the defenses – to break the spirits of those who were fighting.  
__Voldemort's high, cold, cruel laugh. His jeering, his presumption, his voice._

There had been something magical, and I don't mean spells and potions magical, about the camaraderie of the attempted destruction of the establishment from the inside. About being part of a band of people who had influence, had a kind of secret power, and a reputation… The reputation of Dumbledore's Army was probably more revolutionary than most of what we were able to practically do… Especially during that last year, with Harry, Ron and Hermione gone, I was expected to stand up. And I had – but the Carrows had arrived, and Snape was appointed as headmaster, and all the other teachers had to fall in line, or expect punishment. This applied for the students also – and while the younger years fell into a routine: _'Don't get on the wrong side of the Carrows', 'Don't speak out of turn'_; but for the older students who had been forced into returning because of the compulsory education law, the changes were paramount… The Carrows brought their iron grip of punishment to the school, revelling in their enjoyment of pain and suffering – and I wouldn't stand for it. Not at all. Which resulted in my frequent receipt of that punishment.

_Every time I am with people, I can feel the physicality of it:  
__Constant vigilance, like the voice of Mad-Eye Moody was ringing in the mind. Hyper alertness and persistent movement, always on the lookout for the next spell; never sure where the next curse would be coming from. There was no time for rest. And if it was not spells being dodged, then it was debris…  
__Absolute exhaustion – beyond weariness, the leaden sense of heaviness in his limbs, the pain of over exertion and injury.  
__And beyond it all, the looming sense of doom – ever present in his mind, and the nearing end of all things._

And we waited, _I _waited, hoping desperately for news from the outside world, and heard nothing.

The room of requirement became my haven, and gradually it became our headquarters. The headquarters of a secret army, mobilised and ready – simply waiting for the command, waiting for Harry.

Yet I couldn't understand, I don't understand why I thought I was ready… Who is ever ready for war? All those who believe they are find themselves mistaken. For we were not prepared, but by then it was too late.

_Every time I close my eyes, I can feel the weight of the bodies – the injured and the dying – that I carried into the Great Hall._

If hell could come to earth, then it had done that day and night; and I was there in the midst of it. I thought I was ready, I thought I could lead Dumbledore's Army into battle; but when it began, I discovered I am no commander. Perhaps I was better at disguising the fear, the terror that burned on the inside of me was clearly visible on other people's faces. I tried so hard to soldier on, to remain positive and show to the others that all was not lost! But if they had looked me in the eyes I think they would have seen part of me losing…

_Every time I close my eyes my heart constricts, the same way it had done when Harry's lifeless body had been placed at Voldemort's feet._

I can't do it… I still can't do it.

It doesn't matter that six months have passed, it feels like nothing has changed – it feels as though I am still there, I am trapped there. I can't talk about it, I can't tell anyone how it makes me feel, I can't explain the weight that presses down inside my mind. Yet it is all I can think about.

_Every time I close my eyes, I see someone else:  
__Lifeless Harry in Hagrid's embrace.  
__Colin Creevey, still underage but too loyal to be left out of this fight – so small and alone among the rows of the dead.  
__Tonks and Lupin lying together, so peaceful, like they were at the beginning of their family.  
__Fred. Surrounded by family, surrounded by sobs._

I willed them back to life, but knew it was impossible; it won't stop that bit of my mind that thinks _'What if?'. _

And Luna thinks if I talk about it then it will be better, I will feel better. Herr and Harry use phrases like PTSD and say I just need some time to get through it.

I'm never going to get through it.

But that won't stop Luna from asking, it won't stop her from visiting and bringing up the subject even though I've told her a million times that I don't want to talk about the subject. When I say that, she starts talking about us going back to school to repeat our seventh years so we can get the chance to complete our education. And she doesn't understand when I say: "_I don't want to talk about it" t_hat includes talking about going back. I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back. But I bite my lip and say nothing, hoping that perhaps Luna will get the message.

_Every time I close my eyes, I am haunted by those who are left behind:  
__Dennis Creevey, without the elder brother that introduced him to the wizarding world.  
__Teddy Lupin, without his parents, and unaware – at that time – of their sacrifice for the hope of a better life for him.  
__George Weasley, left as a broken part of a whole.  
__All of us – who lost something that can never be retrieved._

I've tried to get over it… But I never will completely. I've tried to move on and leave it in my past; I've tried so hard to not allow to consume my every waking thought.

I don't understand how the rest of Dumbledore's Army have somehow slipped back into everyday life… Luna and Ginny seen to have readjusted to life after the war, with their plans to go back to school with the expectations that I will join them, along with Harry, Hermione and Ron.

Luna has been so patient with me, but patience doesn't always equal or ensure listening. Luna doesn't listen when I tell her "I can't" and I don't mean that I don't want to or that I can't be bothered, it also doesn't mean I don't care or that I'm lazy – it genuinely means I cannot physically or mentally undertake the task. I can't go back to school. Not now, not yet. I can hardly force myself to think of the place without struggling, without a darkness and weight bearing down on me. I just can't…

And I can't tell Luna this… Because she believes in me – she thinks that it will all work itself out, that I will be fine and just able to turn up at school and go to charms class or whatever normal life consists of. I don't want to hold things back from Luna, but I can't let her know how much this hurts.

When I used to close my eyes I could imagine – I imagined a life free from oppression, free from Voldemort; instead it would be surrounded by friends and family, in a fairer and more just community. When I used to close my eyes, I had hope.

Every time I close my eyes now, that hope has disintegrated. It is isolation, it is lonely, it is the struggle to readjust in a world that has changed suddenly, like the rug being tugged from underneath your feet and leaving your footing unsure. My footing in the world was unsure…

In the aftermath of the war, Dumbledore's Army was a battalion without a battle. Its occupants were soldiers stranded in civilian life. I was one of these soldiers, stranded and lost in a world which was no longer my own…

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**A/N: Thank you very much for reading. **


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